Critical Linking: February 15th, 2013

Social Media feels saturated now, but it’s still dominated by young people. As it becomes increasingly normal, there’s only going to be more.

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By way of that file, the author explains the book, and, if he or she is looking for a ghost writer, shops the project around to roughly 500 freelance writers who have joined. Authors can also find editors; illustrators and cover designers; and a sales and marketing team for promotion; while the publishing of the actual book is outsourced. The physical books are distributed through a partnership with the publishing giant Ingram.

Authors start with 80 percent to 90 percent of the royalties and set up their own publishing team from the list of prospects. The team can be paid a flat rate or a share of the royalties.

If publishers paid ten cents per book per month to be shelved, that would deliver an additional $4500 a month — $54,000 a year — to the store. If publishers paid 25 cents per book per month to be shelved, the store would get an additonal $135,000. Since a bookstore would be doing quite well to earn 10% on its sales, our notional $2 million store would be happy to earn $200,000 in profits now so, in either case, the “shelving fee” would be adding a meaningful increment. Certainly, for some stores it could make the difference between staying open or closing down. For others, it would encourage a bigger book inventory. In either case, that’s what publishers want to accomplish.